A Fairly Odd Conspiracy!
by Solomon-Grundy
Summary: Set in the future, Tommy Turner Timmy's son glimpsed at the end of Channel Chasers has been robbed of his Fairy Godparents. As a young adult, he sets out to uncover the mystery of the disappearance of magic from the Earth.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Most people today would say that they don't believe in fairies. If you said you did, you would be called crazy, or at least laughed at behind your back. I know, because I've had both happen to me at different points in my life. I've been called troubled, disturbed, off-balance, and lately it's progressed to cracked and just plain crazy. You'd be a little cracked too, if you knew the things I know. If you'd seen the things I've seen. But I don't believe that fairies exist. I **know** fairies exist.

I know because I once had my very own Fairy Godparents. And then they were stolen away from me.

My name is Tommy Turner. I'm twenty-four years old, I'm single and I live alone. I get by as an artist, but only barely. But more importantly, I'm the son of Timothy Turner. That's where this story really starts, you see, with my father. Back when he was a boy, when he was young enough that he went by "Timmy", he had Fairy Godparents too. The same Fairies, in fact, that were eventually passed on to me and my sister Tammy when we were about ten years old or so. There was a green one and a pink one, "Cosmo" and "Wanda". One male, one female, a mated pair. I don't remember everything about them nowadays, but that much I know for sure.

As I understand it, the fairies first arrived because Tammy and I were being neglected by our parents. It was their duty to try and help us through our childhood until such a time as we eventually "grew out of them" and stopped believing in fairies and magic. Now, I don't mean to make my parents sound harsh. They are both loving people, and I consider myself lucky to have them. But at the time my father Timothy Turner was rather career oriented and spent a lot of nights working late at the office. All to provide us with a better home and lifestyle of course, but that still kept him away a lot. My mother Tootie Turner was similarly driven. She was so devoted to my dad and her family that she spent all her energy doing "mom stuff", and by that I mean participating in bake sales and PTA meetings, attending cooking classes and engrossed in issues of "Better Housekeeping". Everything except actually spending time with Tammy and I. When we weren't left alone to keep each other company, my sister and I were most often supervised by a hellish babysitting-robot that our mother had purchased, or worse, by Aunt Vicky.

When the fairies arrived, everything seemed to make sense again. The universe wasn't out to make our lives miserable… there were checks and balances in place to ensure that no kid should suffer an entirely unbearable childhood. For a couple of years, our life was a never-ending adventure. Tammy and I still had our problems to face… rotten teachers and school bullies, stuck-up cheerleaders and the occasional anti-fairy or pixie causing trouble. But with the combination of our imaginations and the magic of our Fairy Godparents, we knew things would always turn out alright.

Then one day, things changed. Cosmo and Wanda were absent from their fishbowl home. At first this was not any huge cause for alarm. One or both of the Godparents had left intermittently before, to attend a convention, or visit their parents, or perform some duty for their superior Jorgen von Strangle. Even if they were in some sort of trouble, it was not entirely unusual for the fairies to have their own adventure once in a while that did not directly involve Tammy or me.

But a few days turned into a few weeks. A few weeks turned into a few months, then a year. Our memories of our fairies rapidly began to fade… try as I might, the exact details of our adventures across the world and beyond became indistinct, and soon it was all I could do to remember that we had had the adventures in the first place. This had been explained to us once as a natural consequence of a child losing their fairies for whatever reason, which confirmed that Cosmo and Wanda were really gone for good. Without the fairies' magic spells to defend us, our lives rapidly degenerated to their former state at the mercy of babysitters and bullies. My twin and I went through the typical stages of coping with loss: denial, anger, sadness, bargaining…

I tried my best to keep a cool head during the rather traumatizing experience. But without any explanation for how or why Cosmo and Wanda had disappeared, it wasn't easy. After all, we hadn't just lost their ability to have wishes granted, we had also lost our two closest friends. It would have been more merciful, perhaps, if our memories of the fairies were erased wholesale. I had always expected that to be what would happen if we lost our fairies, retaining the memory of once having them felt like a mistake or unintended oversight somehow. But ironically that became the hardest blow of all, when later my sister Tammy stopped believing in fairies altogether.

It must have just been the easiest way for her mind to deal with the situation. She just mentally corrected the oversight that the magic had made in failing to completely remove our knowledge of fairies. No matter how hard I tried to convince her, Tammy refused to acknowledge that we had once had Fairy Godparents. Or even that she had once believed she had, when she was younger. The most I could get her to admit was that she had at least gone along with _my_ belief in fairies, thinking it was a game we were playing. In time, my frustration turned into anger, and we began having fights over the subject. Mom and Dad weren't around to stop us, and Aunt Vicky would just allow us to scream our lungs out without lifting a finger to settle the dispute. We stopped playing together as we had when we were younger; Tammy immersed herself in schoolwork and attempting to climb the social ladder at school. I, on the other hand, refused to give up on Cosmo and Wanda. I looked for clues to their disappearance amongst the things they had left behind. I would play our old games by myself, surrounded by the toys of my childhood. I found copies of the fairy tales that Wanda used to tell us and reread them, hoping to find some hidden meaning in the stories that might explain their absence. I can understand how it may've looked to someone who didn't know the real truth about fairies. But Tammy knew! She just lied to herself, made herself forget about our loving Godparents. That's why what she did was so inexcusable.

I was 15 when I found out Tammy had voiced her concerns to our parents. I don't know how long she'd been talking to them before that. Cosmo and Wanda had told us that they were once our father's Godparents, but he couldn't remember them because his mind had been erased after he had "grown up". It was standard procedure whenever any kid moved on after having fairy godparents. Tammy knew this, so she must have assumed that mom and dad would think I was disturbed, especially with how much time I devoted to the study of fairies and magic. Until then I had allowed my parents to believe it was just a hobby, a passing interest. But it wasn't very long after Tammy ratted me out that the decision was made to send me to military school. It was intended to shock me out of the childhood that I clung to like a security blanket. "Tough Love", as they say. Tammy once told me that she was sorry for it, but that she really felt it was the best thing for me.

I could not have imagined a worse environment to spend my teen years. I was a boy whose happy childhood had been stolen away, and I was desperately trying to find a way back to what I had lost. Tammy must have seen my research as a threat to the temporary peace she had found in her self-deception. She was happy living the lie she had forged for herself, and if I brought Cosmo and Wanda back she would have to confront reality. Admit that she had given up on them. Admit that she had lost faith in our Godparents. Over the years, I began to wonder if that may've even been the reason _why_ they had not returned to us. They knew somehow that Tammy had abandoned them, and moved on to their next appointed Godchild. If that was the case, then I could never forgive my sister.

Military school was a nightmare. There was no escape from the homework, the chores, and the general drudgery of mundane existence. My schoolmates were mostly bullies, enrolled there in the hopes that they would have no one to pick on in a class filled with others such as themselves. I was an enormous target for them. When my interest in folklore and what serious scholars termed "mythology" was found out, I was picked on even more. But I held fast to my convictions. As long as I stayed faithful to what I knew to be the truth, I would eventually be reunited with my Godparents. And then all of this pain would be erased as though it had never happened.

When I had graduated, I moved back to Dimmsdale and got a day job. The working world was as dreary and cruel as high school. But they were just a few temporary gigs to save up for my own apartment and keep me occupied during the day. As soon as I had a marginal lump of money to my name, I jumped at the first opportunity to move out. Ironically, the opportunity came from one of my childhood tormentors, my dear aunt Vicky.

Vicky had inadvertently become a career landlady while pursuing her many failed get-rich-quick ideas. The building she owned was a low-income tenement, and had a pretty high turnover rate of tenants. This was largely thanks to Vicky's stern presence as landlady, but her abrasive personality was one that I had developed a bit of resiliency to by then. The next time a vacancy opened up she offered it to me at a reduced rent; I was family after all. I soon found out that this was also motivated by a certain sense of loneliness as well. Vicky had never married or had children of her own, and as she got older her boyfriends became less and less frequent. She sometimes joked that it was high time that she bought a bunch of cats to fill her apartment with, except that she hated cats. Instead, I became a frequent visitor to her flat.

It was during one of these semi-regular dinners that I had with my aging aunt Vicky that I received the first major confirmation of my beliefs. I had been living on my own for about four years at this point, working odd jobs during the day and trying to break into a career in art, or music, or poetry in my free time. I still longed to find my fairies, but I had exhausted all the resources within my meager reach. To be honest, I was starting to wonder if perhaps Tammy had been right all along. The last memories I had of Cosmo and Wanda were over a decade old, and were rather faded. Perhaps they were just figments of my imagination, made real by the power of a mild psychosis? I had vowed never to forget my Godparents, but at the time my concerns were largely how to make my rent, and keep myself fed. In fact, I had just finished a modest meal with my aunt on that night. While I sat and watched the television with little interest, Vicky was halfway into her second bottle of wine. Who knows what else she might've downed besides that. I had assumed she had already passed out on the couch when she began mumbling.

"Itsh funny, ain't it? The way nobuddy lishtens to ya. Jus' cause you're tellin' em supthin' kinda weird. It don't matter if you're a little twerp, er'a dopey teen, er'a fully grown woman. I was s'posta be somebody! Shomebody import'nt. I know it in my guts. But they don' care. They say "shut up Vicky! Jus' be good, and follow _Da Rules_!"

"What was that?" I demanded, some vague childhood memory tugging at the periphery of my mind. I focused my attention fully on my aunt Vicky, though she would have continued blathering whether I was there or not.

"Oh yea, I know. I know what was gonna happen. They wuz all gonna be my shlaves. I was gonna rule th' goddamn world. But I messed wit' yur dad, and ya can't do that. Can't break da rules. Twerp's always gotta have it his way. You mess with 'im, you get royally fucked. Now I'm a lonely old lush instead. Happened ta me, happened ta that Francis twerp, happened ta that Crocker guy…"

That name Crocker rung a bell. Before I was transferred, there was a Principal Crocker at the school I was attending in Dimmsdale. I had thought it was a woman at the time though. But what did these people have to do with aunt Vicky, and my dad? Trying to get Vicky's attention, I grabbed her arm and pressed "What happened to them?"

"**The** **Curse!** That's wut happened." Vicky shouted, kicking her legs into the air. "Yer dad sicced his weird twerp magic on 'em. On me. On alla us. It's not fair, it's not."

My eyes must have practically bugged at the word "magic". "You know something, don't you! You've known all along, but you said nothing!" I accused.

"I don't know **nothin'**!" Vicky snapped. "I just know that I used to be mean to Timmy. Real mean. Nothin' against him, it's jus' who I am. It was fun. We were all jus' havin fun. But then…" she trailed off.

I failed to mention that she had once treated me with the same cruelty. I wanted to know what she had to say. Vicky knew how I had insisted that fairies were real. She had been silent when my parents started to worry about my mental health. She had been silent when I was shipped off to military school. What was she keeping from me? And what reason could she have to keep it from me all this time?

Vicky clutched the half-empty wine bottle to her chest, and looked me in the eye. Her gaze was fierce, she was a fierce woman, but I could see fear there too. The fear seemed to wash the drunkenness away for a brief moment of clarity. "Weird stuff happened back then Tom. Spooky, unnatural stuff. Sometimes I'd lose time. Hours, days even. I wasn't the only one. There were weekends that the entire town forgot ever existed. It happened to people, places and things too. One day they just appear like the universe just coughed them up outta nowhere, then the next day they're gone again, swallowed up forever. And in the middle of the confusion was Timmy, with this big knowing _grin_."

She took a big swig of wine then, and I feared she might drink herself unconscious before I heard everything she had to say. Thankfully, a minute later she continued only slightly less intelligibly then before.

"You couldn't talk about it though. That one guy did, Crocker, and we all saw how he winded up. Crocker knew what was going on better then anybody, and it cost him. He shoulda done like me, and played dumb. That way you're not a threat. A lot of people were too dumb to realize something wasn't normal anyway. That, or the twerp did somethin' to make 'em that way. I was pretty sure your grandparents were brainwashed. They got dumber and dumber through the years, but they kept paying me well so I didn't say anything. But if you were smart, and you knew Timmy like I did… you could read between the lines. Somethin' was going on."

With the knowledge I had, I _could_ read between the lines. What Vicky was describing fit perfectly with my own experiences with Cosmo and Wanda. When things got a little too out of control, a quick wish was all that was needed to wipe the slate clean. Everyone involved would be momentarily dazed, and then go about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Except, it sounded like my father had not been as careful coving his tracks as me and my sister had been when we were younger.

"I know you're thinking I should've said something back when people were calling you crazy. That if I said something, people would'a believed you." Vicky suddenly grew angry, her dark eyebrows knotting together on her forehead and her long teeth flashing. "Well I was wishing you'd just shut up! Let it go! We're better off without having fairies or whatever fucking things up all the time. My life may suck dirty hobo nuts, but at least it's normal now. At least I don't have to be afraid of waking up as a giant snake or a green moose or some other make-believe bullshit. Do you know what that's like? Not knowing every time you open a door whether the other side will be your bedroom, a volcano, or outer space?!"

After that, Vicky's anger melted back into a confused array of crying and drunken swearing. She was correct though, my first response had been to feel betrayed by my aunt. But looking at her now, broken by what sounded like years of magically-induced torment, I couldn't feel angry at her. Only pity her. Leaving her to her alcohol and clouded memories, I gathered my things and headed back to my apartment. Aunt Vicky would be fine; she was no stranger to a hangover. But her ramblings, if they held any grain of truth, had given me a new avenue of investigation. After years of dead ends, I might have a promising lead; Crocker.

The first thing the next day, I began my work. Investigating the name wasn't hard. An internet connection and a half-decent ability to browse the web was enough to turn up the basic information. Dimmsdale elementary had formerly had a Principal Geraldine Waxeplax-Crocker, who had been close to retirement back when I was attending. By now she was surely well into her old age. Her husband, one Denzel Crocker (deceased) had worked at the same school as a teacher. Before my time, apparently. Mrs. Crocker had retired with full pension according to her bio page on the school's website. Mr. Crocker did not have the same distinction. The obvious conclusion was that he had been fired or quit at some point, or died before he could collect his pension. It was possible this was a completely normal occurrence. Perhaps he was a poor teacher, or couldn't handle being in a subordinate position to his wife. Or, perhaps he had fallen victim to heart failure or some other malady brought on by the stress of his job. Or maybe… it was the curse as Vicky had said.

When she was awake and sobered up, I briefly called on Aunt Vicky in the hopes of questioning her further. Vicky with a hangover is not a pleasant person to be around. Nevertheless, I persisted in knocking on her door until she answered. Seeing her there in a hastily drawn housecoat, her hair a mess of curlers and her eyes ringed with dark circles was almost enough to make me turn and run right then and there. But I had to gather every possible clue. Anything else she might have to say could turn out to be vitally important.

"What do ya want?!" Vicky snarled. Damn, I would've thought the hangover would lower her tolerance for loud noises. I guess Aunt Vicky was just made of sterner stuff.

"I just wanted to ask you if you knew anything else about my dad and…" I lowered my voice, "… and his fairies."

Vicky gave me that look, a look I had received countless times over the years. For my family members it was well practiced at this point, called up at a moments notice whenever I brought up the subject of fairies or magic. Disbelief. Condescension. Sometimes a little sympathy as well. For my family members it also usually had a good dose of annoyance too. And with Vicky, every facial expression always contained a touch of anger. "For like the millionth time Tom, I don't know anything about fairies." She growled, moving to shut the door in my face.

"What about what you told me last night?" I said rapidly, shoving my foot in the door to stop her from closing it. I don't know how I managed to be so bold in the face of Aunt Vicky's legendary temper and alcohol-eroded patience.

"I didn't say **anything** last night, you understand twerp? Now **leave me alone!**" she snapped, shooting me a harsh look before stomping on my foot. As soon as I had withdrawn my leg in pain, the door slammed shut again, and I heard the bolt lock. I had no doubt that I would be unable to speak to her again for at least the rest of the day. But I had managed to gather one small piece of information. When I mentioned her drunken ramblings from the night before, underneath the expression of anger she displayed there was a hint of fear in her eyes as well. That same fear from the previous night. If nothing else, it confirmed for me that Vicky had known what she was talking about, even if she regretted saying it. This lead was real.

With a little additional digging I was able to turn up Mrs. Crocker's last known address. I couldn't find any records of other relatives, so talking to Mrs. Crocker was probably my best shot at finding out what connection Mr. Crocker had to my father. There was the possibility that he had been one of my father's schoolteachers. The dates of Crocker's employment overlapped the years my dad was in elementary school. But then, my dad has had plenty of teachers through the years, and none of them experienced anything out of the ordinary. But Vicky had mentioned that Crocker had spoken publicly about something… perhaps he had gathered some information on fairies, and was later silenced? If so, then I desperately wanted that information. I had no idea what it might be, or if it even still existed. If my assumption was even correct in the first place. But just the chance, the possibility, that this could lead me to a way to reclaim the fairies that were rightfully mine… I was champing at the bit to find out.

I did my best to make myself look presentable before going to meet with Mrs. Crocker. She was still able bodied given that she was living alone in a suburban home, and the pension she was drawing should have allowed her to live comfortably through her retirement. I did not expect to find the home she occupied as dilapidated as I did. The lawn was overgrown, the garden choked with weeds. The house was crumbling and the roof was in need of repair. I approached with some degree of apprehension… suppose she was a shut-in, unwilling to speak to anyone? The cover story I had concocted for myself was that I was a graduate student at Dimmsdale teacher's college, collecting anecdotes from retired education professionals for a paper. I needn't have bothered. Crocker's widow was one of the most trusting people I had ever met. In retrospect, she probably would have invited me over for dinner if I had told her I was a stranger with a flat tire.

I began with a handful of typical questions, scribbling down my host's predictable answers on a notepad just to maintain the role I was playing. Why did she go into teaching, what did she enjoy most about teaching, how did she compare the role of a principal to the role of a teacher, that sort of stuff. Mrs. Crocker may have been elderly, but she was certainly _full of life_. Her peals of delight at each question would seemed more natural coming from a schoolgirl rather then the 70-plus old lady sitting in her rocking chair in front of me. From there I moved the conversation towards the subject of her late husband.

"How would you say being married to another member of the faculty affected your experience of a career in education?" I asked. Mrs. Waxeplax-Crocker stared at me blankly for a moment, blinked once, her vacant smile wavering slightly before returning to its usual prominence.

"Oh, Denzel and I had loads of fun working together. He took such delight in flunking a student; he even added extra quizzes and exams to the curriculum just so he could hand out extra F's. But I didn't mind that he sometimes took his work home with him. It was a nice distraction from his hobby."

"His hobby?" I queried, arching an eyebrow.

Mrs. Crocker looked anxious, her smile fading for a moment. I leaned in a little closer, noticing that my host's eyes were darting around the room now, her expression becoming confused. "My hobby is horticulture!" She chirped out of nowhere. That was not the question I had asked. "Did you notice the garden on your way in? I've won the prize for best garden three times now!" A moment later Mrs. Crocker refocused her sight on me, and pleasantly asked, "What was your next question?"

I made a quick notation about the subject of Mr. Crocker's "hobbies" for later investigation, than pretended as if it had never happened. I decided to ignore the discrepancy between the truth of Mrs. Crocker's garden and the fantasy she had concocted. "I was wondering if you still had any of your husband's things around that were related to his teaching career. Like, maybe old yearbooks, or lesson plans? I'd love to learn a little bit about what he was like as well."

"Oh, well you can poke around his school things if you'd like. But if you want to get to know him you could always just stay for supper. It shouldn't be too long before he returns home."

My eyebrows furrowed, wondering if I had heard her correctly. Was my research wrong, was Denzel Crocker still alive? If so, the reports of his demise had been greatly exaggerated. Either way, I decided I would take Mrs. Crocker's offer to take a look at Mr. Crocker's things. Even if I would get the chance to interview him directly later on, there was no guarantee he would be any more forthcoming then Aunt Vicky had been. A peek into his private records might give me a useful line of questioning to ask him about later.

Mrs. Crocker took me upstairs and pointed out a folding staircase to an attic room. "I don't go up there," she explained, "Denzel gets so cranky when I disturb the system he keeps his office in. But you should be able to find his school mementos without much difficulty. If you need me I'll be downstairs getting dinner ready… we're having peach cobbler!"

As she scuttled off to her cooking duties I cautiously ascended the rickety staircase. As soon as I poked my head into the darkened attic I was struck by the stale, dank air. It was a struggle just to breathe the rotten air at first. Groping along the wall I eventually found a light switch and the room was illuminated by a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

The room was a mess. Not just because of the gross untidiness, but also because of the thick layer of dust that had fallen over everything. The room was like a tomb, so thick was it with age and decay. The walls were streaked with patches of green and black mold. The single window was caked in a layer of grime that allowed only an indistinct glimpse into the outside world. I took a few tentative steps into the room, noting that the only footprints I could see were the ones I was leaving. Clearly, this room had not been so much as stepped into for many years.

I searched the room as efficiently as I could, while trying not to be too intrusive on the off chance that Crocker (if he was still alive) might return to find me rummaging through his things. The floor was covered in piles of thick books and stacks of loosely related papers. I started shuffling through the stacks, finding mostly works on various fringe theories like UFO's and Bigfoot. One pile was a large collection of "Conspiracy!" magazine, many bearing a subscription sticker bearing Denzel Crocker's name. After a while, I noticed that a large fraction of the books were all by a single author, signing the works as "Simon". Most likely a pen-name or alias, given the nature of the books… I knew what it was like to be called "crazy" for speaking one's ideas, and I could understand why the author might wish to remain anonymous. I gathered up "Simon's" books into a pile and flipped through some, noting titles such as _Cryptozoology and Fictitious Companion Syndrome in Children_ subtitled _Imaginary Friends or Monsters Under the Bed: A Field Study_, and _The Anatomy of a Mythical Monster_. By this point it was obvious that this represented the "hobby" that Crocker's wife had mentioned. I wasn't quite sure how it related to my father or my fairies yet though. Perhaps Crocker believed that Fairy Godparents were nothing more then a child's "Invisible Friend"? It was conceivable that, as my dad's elementary school teacher, he might have taken it upon himself to "cure" the belief in fairies. I had seen my parents try the same tactic on me when I was younger, almost being sent to a child psychologist at one point. But that theory still left some blanks… what had he done to earn the "Curse" Vicky described? Trying to convince a young Timmy Turner that fairies weren't real might have annoyed him, but it didn't seem worthy of a magical retribution. I needed to find something that would give me insight into Crocker's own frame of thinking, like a journal or dairy or something. That might point me in the same direction that Crocker was looking in. My intention was to repeat his discovery, with the key difference being that my past experience with my Godparents would spare me whatever fate Crocker had met with.

Aside from the piles of books and stationary, the other major feature of the attic room was a desk occupied by a computer that looked about fifteen years out of date. I hesitated to turn it on, once again fearing that Crocker might arrive to find me poking through his personal files, even if he hadn't looked at them in a decade. It was then that I noticed a blinking light on the printer connected to the computer. "Out of paper; job paused" the flashing light indicated. That was an easy enough problem to solve, so I dusted off a nearby stack of blank printer papers and fed them into the back of the machine, then hit "Resume job". The machine took a few moments to respond, but soon enough it was printing out reams of a document that it had held in its temporary memory for what must have been years.

Sheet after sheet slid through the old laser printer and piled up on the opposite side of it. I scanned a few pages; it seemed to be a dialogue of some sort, a log of a conversation between several people. After reading only a few random lines my eyes fell upon the word "fairies" and I took an immediate interest. As soon as it finished printing I picked up the log and began reading.

01:44:23(Agent Mothman): and you're positive that there's sufficient evidence for us to gather after words? If we aren't able to back up our claim, we're going to look like criminals, or at least mentally challenged. 

01:46:03(Agent CrownHunter): I'm positive. I used a simple triangulation method with a variation of the tracking technology we discussed earlier. All the results keep pointing to this one address as the epicenter of a major magical incursion into our dimension. There's no doubt in my mind; this can only be evidence of FAIRY GODPARENTS! 

01:46:13(Agent CrownHunter): Sorry, my finger slipped on the caps lock. 

01:49:30(Agent Bumpinthenight): While I don't necessarily agree that "fairies" (if you insist on calling the reality-editing phenomenon that) are the only possible source of the readings, I do concur that the site is worth investigating. Whatever the source of the signal is, it is certainly something unknown to humankind and therefore is of interest to the Swollen Eyeball. 

01:51:28(Agent Mothman): I know I seem cautious, but I just want to be sure we've given this proper thought and preparation. It's not often that the Swollen Eyeball actually converges for a meeting of any kind in person, let alone a joint field mission. I mean, what if this thing is dangerous? What if someone gets hurt? 

01:51:46(Agent Ecto16): I can handle combat if things get ugly. 

01:53:52(Agent Mothman): Yeah, that sets my mind right at ease. How long has it been since you last leveled a building over in Amity? The last thing we need is for you to go in with your guns blazing, when we're trying to keep a low profile. Have they even rebuilt the Fentonworks yet? Or was that one "the ghosts' fault" too? 

01:55:19(Agent Ecto16): I did what I had to do! You have no idea how close it came to the Ghost Zone swallowing up everything, and I mean everything. And all while you stayed home and played your little games chasing space aliens or whatever. 

01:56:58 (Agent Ecto16): I lost good friends during that encounter, so don't you preach to me about how we need to be cautious and tip-toe around the unknown. The unknown is out for our blood whether you know it or not, and when the time comes you'll be thanking God for me and my guns. 

01:58:47 (Agent Mothman): And how about everyone who doesn't know that the collateral damage was necessary to bag your latest phantom? The site we're talking about setting up an operation on is listed as an orphanage. What are you going to tell the police if a stray shot vaporizes some little kid's head? 

02:00:24 (Agent Bumpinthenight): Alright, settle down kids. We've had this debate before, and now is not the time for it to be brought up again. 

02:03:33 (Agent CrownHunter): Indeed. As with any paranormal investigation, time is of the essence. We need to secure the site and whatever evidence it holds before the phenomenon dissipates or moves elsewhere. As it is we're somewhat fortunate; this "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" is a decrepit building that does not see many visitors. I also did some poking around into their electronic financial records and found that they only have two residents listed on their tax return. It should be no problem to subdue a girl and her bedridden grandmother without resorting to violence, and we won't have to worry about running herd on a bunch of insufferable children. 

02:05:12 (Agent Bumpinthenight): But she does raise a good point Dib. The supernatural can be dangerous, as you know. Which is all the more reason that we will need you as a member of our strike team. Your father's technology will provide us with a decided advantage, even more then what's in Valerie's armory. 

02:06:20 (Agent Ecto16): Damn it Bumpinthenight, I've told you before not to use our real names on the Swollen Eye Network! If any of our enemies were to hack into our electronics it could compromise us. 

02:07:54 (Agent Mothman): I hate agreeing with Ecto16, but some of our targets do know their way around computers. It's bad enough if one of us were to be taken out, it'd be disastrous if our whole operation went up in flames. Not all of us can afford to completely abandon our day-to-day civilian lives "Simon", if that is your real name. 

02:10:25 (Agent Bumpinthenight): I apologize. Though I hope you realize that all of our secrecy will be gone as soon as our mission succeeds anyway. If Agent CrownHunter is correct in his assessment of the location as a "Fairy Nest" and we are actually able to capture live specimen(s), we will be heralded as heroes by the public. Our identities will become household names, and we will be beyond reproach of anyone hoping to silence us! 

02:14:45 (Agent CrownHunter): It would be great if we are so fortunate, but for the time being we should keep our personal identities a closely guarded secret. In the meantime there are more immediate matters at hand. 

02:18:13 (Agent CrownHunter): Agent Mothman and Ecto16, you are to rendezvous with the surveillance team I have stationed at the target site. They are identified as Agents Grimm & Eville, and our offsite tech-man is Agent Sassy-Cat. You'll be arriving ahead of Bumpinthenight and me, as the two of us have a stopover flight from Townsville that will delay us about a day. I've already booked the tickets and emailed you the relevant addresses. Mothman, with your expertise with Membrane-tech, we'll be relying on you to set up our equipment in preparation for the strike operation. Ecto16, I want you to go over the data that the surveillance team has collected and prepare a tactical report for the team. 

02:19:10 (Agent Bumpinthenight): Good luck everyone. I'll see you in four days. 

There the conversation log ended, and I folded it up to take with me. It was clear that this was a serious clue and I would need to reference it later. However, I didn't have a backpack to hide it in and I wanted to avoid arousing suspicion in Mrs. Crocker. Looking about the room, I picked up Crocker's copy of _The Anatomy of a Mythical Monster_ and tucked the printout between its pages.

"Mrs. Crocker, I spotted an old textbook up in the attic that I think would be invaluable for my paper. Do you think it would be ok if I borrowed it for a couple of weeks, until I finish my essay?" I called out as I descended the stairs to the ground floor. I walked into the kitchen to find a rather unusual sight. Mrs. Crocker was busily serving supper, with two places set out at the table. Normal enough at first glance, until I saw that the meal consisted of a mush of cake and… bacon?

Certainly not the peach cobbler my host had promised. The bizarre combination of fried bacon strips and chunks of a birthday cake was something you might expect from the twisted imagination of a ten-year old, not a demure old lady. Turning to me, Mrs. Crocker asked "Would you like me to set a place for you? You can sit next to Denzel there."

"No, thank you, but I really must be going. I have a lot of work still to do." I lied, "So as long as it's alright to borrow this book, I'd better be on my way."

"Well, it's alright with me." Mrs. Crocker said cheerily, "But you'd better ask Denzel. Honey, is it alright if this nice young man borrows your dusty old book for a little while?"

I followed her gaze to the kitchen table, and noticed for the first time that one of the chairs had been pulled out, as if someone was sitting there. Mrs. Crocker waited in silence, looking expectantly at the vacant seat. Oh, Lord. I knew then that Denzel Crocker was dead after all. Probably he had been dead for years now. Or at the very least, missing and presumed dead by the world at large. But only to the world at large; in his wife's mind, he had never left the house.

Breaking the silence, I spoke "Oh, thank you Mr. Crocker. Don't worry, I'll take the utmost care of your book. You'll never know it was missing."

The widow seemed happy enough with that imaginary answer from her deceased spouse, and resumed setting the table for her and her phantasm husband. Given the skewed state of her mind I decided I wouldn't be able to get any meaningful answers out of her regarding how Crocker died. If indeed he had died, and not simply left and never returned. Without further ado I excused myself from the home and headed off back to my apartment.

That night, alone in my apartment, I went over the printout of the conversation again and made some notes. "Agent Mothman" had identified "Agent Bumpinthenight" as "Simon", while also insinuating that this was most likely an alias. Whether or not this was the same "Simon" that had authored the books littering Crocker's attic was unsure, though it seemed a likely supposition to make. Were Simon and Crocker the same person? Possible. Perhaps Crocker had been leading a double life in order to hide his paranormal investigations from the world at large. That might explain his widow's distaste for his "hobby". Though, that theory was at odds with Mothman's statement that Simon had left his civilian identity behind.

Whoever Simon was, he had been careless enough to drop the names of two of the other "agents". The first was Agent Mothman, being referred to as "Dib". Dib was an unusual name, perhaps another alias. The only other information about Mothman was that he had some sort of expertise with Membrane-tech. This was remarkable for a couple of reasons. Membrane-tech was the term coined for the slew of advanced technology and inventions created by the eccentric and genius scientist, Professor Membrane. For years Prof. Membrane had jealously guarded his technological secrets, only sharing the occasional advancement through a public access television show that he hosted. Then, some five years ago, the Professor had died during some experiment involving exploration of the nearby galaxy (in an attempt to contact intelligent life on other planets). His inventions and estate were turned over to his children, who in turn marketed the advanced technology and built a modest financial empire.

The problem this caused was that Membrane-tech had only become available to the public within the past five years, and even then was terribly expensive. Which was out of synch with the dust in Crocker's attic, the date he stopped teaching at school, and even the date that Cosmo and Wanda went missing, which all pointed to some event that occurred a little over a decade ago. It had to be that this "Dib" was somehow intimately familiar with Membrane's technology years ahead of its release into the world. But how could that be...

I ran a simple web-search on the Membrane corp., focusing on any information relating to the company's home office in downtown Endsville. Predictably their corporate website came up, and I gave it a cursory glance, just to get an idea of the company's public image. I did a double-take when I spotted the name of the company's president. Dib Membrane. Was it that easy? It was a little hard to swallow that the neuvau-riche playboy Dib Membrane was involved with shady underground conspiracy-nuts, but the match was pretty well perfect. I would have to pay him a visit in person, and perhaps I could find out.

The next name was a "Valerie", who was associated with the location "Amity" and a business named "Fentonworks". It was an easy guess to say that Amity was probably Amity Park, a small town not far from Endsville. The town's official website proclaimed it as "The home town of Inviso-Bill!" who seemed to be their star attraction. Depending on the source he was a sinister urban legend, a local superhero, or a made-up town mascot used to generate tourism. The name Fentonworks wasn't anywhere to be found… could be that the company had never managed to rebuild after whatever disaster "Valerie" was involved in had struck. Or, perhaps it had never been very successful to begin with.

Not wanting to give up the clue entirely, I did a search for the name "Fenton" and found a few matches. There was a report of a lab accident involving a Jack Fenton in that area back in the 1980's. It seems a fellow student, one Vlad Masters, was injured during a disastrous test run of Fenton's… "Ghost-portal"? That synched up pretty well with what Ecto16 had been ranting about. The rest of the information was pretty mundane, an announcement of his marriage to his wife Madeline a few years later, then two kids some years after that. With nothing else interesting turning up, I refocused on Valerie.

With such a common first name and no last name to narrow it down, I hadn't expected to find much. Imagine my surprise when a very prominent Valerie Gray turned up in the headlines of, once again, Amity Park. This Valerie was some kind of gun for hire. Well, that matched Dib's complaints of Ecto16's trigger-happy tendencies. It seemed she had once worked as a bounty-hunter or something for none other then one-time mayor Vlad Masters. Wow, this must be a really small town… it seems like everyone knew everyone else. After her employment with Masters ended for unspecified reasons, she took a job as a bodyguard for Amity Park's replacement mayor, Tucker Foley. That was some thirty-odd years ago now, but another quick search confirmed that Foley still held the office of Mayor, easily winning every election since he first took the job. I couldn't find any mention of whether or not Valerie was still around as his bodyguard after all this time, but that was at least one more lead I could follow up on.

The last dangling loose end was Crocker himself. If he had a log of that conversation on his computer then odds are he was one of the four names represented within the log. Ecto16 and Mothman were both accounted for. If Crocker was using the alias "Simon" then he was Agent Bumpinthenight. If not, then he was CrownHunter. Either way, the question remained of just what had happened to him? It seemed clear that he was at least aware of fairies, even if he lacked the evidence to prove it at the time the computer conversation had occurred. If he was CrownHunter (and I was leaning more towards that theory then away from it) then he even went so far as to identify this defunct Foster Home as a "nest" of fairies. I had never known Wanda and Cosmo to "nest" before, but perhaps that was just because my fairies had taken the forms of goldfish rather then birds or rats or some other nesting animal. Regardless, my two biggest tasks were set out before me; find this Foster Home, and find out what happened to Crocker. Hopefully I could avoid falling victim to whatever dire fate had taken his life, or his mind, or both. I didn't have a whole lot in my favor, but I did have one thing that Crocker didn't have.

Putting aside my notes and research for the evening, I went to my closet and pulled out a worn, heavy carrying case. Inside was my single most prized possession, the one treasure from my childhood that had preserved my belief in fairies all through the years. I undid the brass latches on the case and open it wide, reaching for my secret. Without this, I would have probably convinced myself that it had all been a delusion, as my sister had. But I knew it was all true. I knew because I held in my hands a copy of Da Rules.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Slowly and with the utmost care, I turned page after page of the dusty old tome. I had read it all before, countless times. All but the most complex portions I had already memorized. I wasn't reading _Da Rules_ to glean any new information; I was doing so because it comforted me.

"Soon, I'll have my fairies again." I spoke softly. There was no one around to hear me, being as I was alone in my apartment late at night. But sometimes talking aloud to myself would help me to better organize my thoughts. It could be that I was still used to having a pair of helpful little fairies nearby to act as a sounding board, and occasionally offer back some sound (or not so sound) advice. Or, perhaps it just helped with the loneliness.

_Da Rules_ was ostensibly the single most important document of Fairy lore on Earth, or anywhere. Created by the rulers of fairy society at some point so far in the past humanity probably didn't even exist yet, the _Rules_ served as a "how to" book for fairies acting as Godparents for human children. It contained extensive writing on the granting of wishes and the prohibitions thereof, the origin of the Godchild-Godparent relationship between humans and fairies, and guides to many of the mythic locales and bizarre nearby dimensions that fairies routinely interacted with. I remembered a few from my childhood, but some of the places mentioned I could only dream about. Distant _Yugopotamia_ out amongst the stars, backwards _Retroville_ existing in its oddly curved pocket of space/time, and the nameless _City_ hidden within the pages of a simple super-hero comic book. All these places were described in _Da Rules_, and I longed to visit them. But, while the manual described the means by which I might enter these strange places, it did not detail how I would return to my home reality. Any journey I made to one of these parallel-dimensions would be a one-way trip. And it didn't describe how I might get to Fairyworld, the only supra-terrestrial locale that actually **mattered** to me.

This was all because my copy of _Da Rules_ was woefully incomplete. The saving grace of that flaw is that it is perhaps the only reason why the book did not evaporate into magical vapor along with all my other wishes when my godparents left. If I had wished for an exact duplicate of the fairies' book of laws and customs, it would surely have been too big of a threat to their secrecy to be allowed to keep. But, being a young boy who didn't always think my wishes out thoroughly, that wasn't what I had wished for.

Frustrated by the rule book's tendency to get in the way of my best wishes, I had once had the bright idea to actually read through the damned thing. Once I understood how fairy magic worked, I reasoned, I would then be in a better position to make informed wishes. Sadly, the exact wording of my request was not quite so clear. What I had actually _said_ was something along the lines of: "I wish I had my own copy of _Da Rules_!"

Emphasis on "copy". Ever dutiful, Cosmo and Wanda set in to work on transcribing me my book by hand. What I ended up with was of mixed usefulness. The sections that Wanda had copied were accurate enough, though I could tell from the flowery language and sometimes opinionated wording that she had taken it upon herself to make a few edits, perhaps leaving out portions she deemed to technical. Most of the essential information remained intact though. Cosmo's portions however…

I don't know exactly what was going through his head when he wrote it, but I can guess that he was at least trying to be helpful. That, or he got bored **exceedingly** easily. Many sections lost their focus and instead became dissertations on nearby inanimate objects or strange tirades against people or things that annoyed Cosmo. A handful of pages were transcribed into what I eventually discovered was Esperanto (in an effort to make the book open to readers of all nationalities, perhaps?). Later, he stopped writing altogether and filled the pages with doodles and pictographs of wands and fairies and magical symbols. The margins of the book contained dozens of "helpful hints" on the working of magic, things like "if granting a wish during a new moon, turn to page 243! If the subject of the wish is wearing a hat, check the headgear index on page 488!" I wasn't sure if the "tips" were left by Wanda or Cosmo or both, but either way they overlapped each other in such nonsensical ways that the book formed an impenetrable literary maze to any sane reader. At age 21, I had already developed my first stress-induced ulcer, which I attribute largely to my efforts at translating this copy into something understandable.

To an eleven year old boy, that sort of a hurdle was more then enough to discourage me of my original notion and shut the book away for later use. I had forgotten about it completely when the fairies were taken, and only rediscovered it years later when cleaning out my room before moving out. As soon as I found it, I rededicated myself to deciphering its mysteries. For a long time I was convinced that it contained the key to locating my fairies, or at least finding a way into Fairy World where I could demand some sort of explanation from Jorgen. Alas, after countless sleepless nights and the cost of my adolescent social life, I was no closer to my Godparents' mythical homeland.

I did, however, learn a few useful things about how Fairy magic worked. About how I could grant wishes. Even my own. But the price to pay was a heavy one, not one I was willing to pay indiscriminately. To get what I wanted I would need to find my Godparents.

For the moment, I put aside my oft-read relic. There was nothing new I would learn from it that I hadn't already puzzled out over the years. And while it was comforting in some ways, it also drudged up the same old frustrations that I had grappled with since I began my lonely quest.

Instead, I had new reading material for tonight. I had originally only grabbed the book from Crocker's attic to use as a cover for the printouts I was smuggling from the house. However, since I would have to wait until tomorrow to catch a bus to Endsville anyway, perusing _The Anatomy of a Mythical Monster_ seemed like a good use of my time.

I found the book was actually surprisingly engrossing. "Simon", the pen-name of the author, fancied himself as a monster-hunter. In fact, he frequently referred to himself specifically as "Simon the Monster Hunter" as though it were an earned title, which I suppose it may actually have been. In his narrative Simon was quite confident that he was the most skilled and knowledgeable person to have ever investigated the paranormal, and was equally certain that in the very near future he would be showered with fortune and accolades for his many discoveries. Well, I guess he was wrong there, since it was at least a decade later and I had never heard of him. Still, this man's unwavering confidence and faith in himself was both inspiring and a little unsettling.

The essence of the book was a summarization of the many things Simon had learned about monsters, both through his direct observation and from secondhand knowledge supposedly gleaned from interactions with the monsters themselves! The first few chapters of the book were like reading a wilderness guide; Simon described his forays into the city dump (though he failed to mention _which_ city) and the patterns of activity of the monsters he was tracking as they went about their daily lives. Diet, hunting/gathering strategies, activity cycles, social rituals, nest construction, every minute detail that Simon had observed had been recorded and analyzed.

The incredible depth of the information was almost enough to make a person forget that the creatures Simon was writing about weren't supposed to even _exist_. "Monster" was a terribly generic term, and it didn't help that most of Simon's physical descriptions were completely contradictory. Really, it was as if one "monster" looked absolutely nothing like the next, to the point that it would be impossible to describe them as a single species at all. Descriptions included in the book portrayed them as generally being bipedal, but quadrupeds, monopeds, and tripeds all existed as well. Monsters sometimes had one eye, or two, or multiple, and sometimes weren't even attached to their bodies (as impossible as that was). All shapes and colours were mentioned, some had hair, some scales, some were winged, and some wore clothing while others didn't. Even as far from being a skeptic as I was, it was difficult to accept the existence of a race of beings that so blatantly broke every known law of nature. I was about to toss the book aside as a complete crock when I came across the following passage:

"… _It may come as a difficult proposition for the learned man of science to accept that entities such as described in this record may have evolved naturally. I do not blame you for your skepticism. It is only natural to react with disbelief (which is in truth a mask for fear) when one first encounters oddities such as these. A person possessing the resolve, fortitude and raw nerve to meet a monster face-to-face and not flinch is truly one in a million, and will be set apart from his peers. _

_However, your disbelief may be overcome by considering the possibility that the conventional rules of life and evolution do not apply to monsters, because __**they are not conventional carbon-based life**__. All life as we know it is made up of cells and enzymes, consisting of proteins and minerals, which invariably contain organic molecules. Molecules that are built up out of atoms of carbon, calcium, iron, oxygen, potassium, and many more. My research and experience lead me to the hypothesis that monsters contain none of these elements. In fact, they are not composed of typical matter at all (although they may interact with energy the same way we do. For example, they react to heat and light as a typical animal would). _

_But if these beings are not composed of matter, what are they made up of? This is a difficult question to answer. It helps to examine some of the more unique qualities and phenomenon associated with monsters;_

_-Monsters spend the majority of the existence in the pursuit of human fear. They go to great lengths to provoke this emotional response and their success in this endeavor is directly tied to their continued existence and well being. _

_-Monsters subsist on a diet of garbage. Not refuse, but __**garbage**__, things which humans wish to be rid of. The key difference being that the quality of the food is judged not on its nutritional value (as I have documented, a monster is just as willing to devour an old clock radio as it is to eat an apple core) but rather how unappealing the item would be for human consumption. Value is directly proportional to how disgusting the item is. It is important to note that the criteria for judging disgust are human-centric; for example, an old fish carcass would be a fit meal for a stray cat, but would induce vomiting in a typical person. Therefor, it would be deemed a suitable meal for a monster. _

_-Monsters exhibit all manner of physical proportions, but many are strikingly reminiscent of conventional animals. Rabbits, snakes, centipedes, bees, worms and others have all been observed as models for monster body types. At first I assumed this was a defensive adaptation similar to camouflage. However, I now believe this pattern is further evidence supporting my most radical theories."_

At this point I was forced to put the book down, when a knock sounded at my door. I quickly dropped a bookmark in place and got out of bed, tossing on my ratty old housecoat to see who it was.

I was not overly surprised to find that it was Aunt Vicky. I was not the sort of person who got many visitors, and even if I was I would hope they would have the manners to come see me during daylight hours. Vicky, not known for her manners, had no problem with knocking on my door at any time of the night that suited her. At least she looked marginally less hung over then last I saw her.

"Tom," she barked, "I just wanted to tell ya that your sister came by today."

"Tammy?" I asked, "What did she want?"

"I dunno. Nothing special, I think it was just a social visit. I told her you were out, and she said she'd be back tomorrow to come see you."

I will admit that my recent investigations had left me a little on edge. Perhaps I was feeling slightly paranoid, even. But at that moment, I was convinced that Tammy had come to put a stop to my research.

"What else did you tell her?" I asked, my words rushing out of me in a tumble. Damn, I had meant that to sound casual. Vicky looked at me with an appraising eye, and searched the content of her memories.

"What, I'm supposed to remember every little thing I say? I probably told her you were out looking for that Crocker guy like you were asking about, or just poking around for fairies like you always do."

Shit, that was it then. Tammy would **definitely** be coming back if she found out I had a lead on Cosmo and Wanda. She would try to dissuade me again, and get in the way of my investigation. Most would see this as an irrational fear. But unlike most, I had a notion of how my sister thinks; she would see this new investigation as a relapse into my "emotional difficulties". She would come to me calmly, with arms open, offering her understanding and her support. She would allay my fears, and do whatever she could to help me get my life back in order again. Make sure I was clean and presentable and clocking in at work on time. Earning a steady paycheck. A respectable and upright citizen, a contributing member of society.

I couldn't allow it.

I didn't want that happy, docile life! What I wanted was my goddamn fairies back!

In a hurry, I thanked Vicky for passing along the message and shut the door. My schedule had suddenly been advanced, and I decided I would need to leave **tonight**. I'll admit, I was fearful of having a run-in with Tammy. Not because she might interfere with my investigation, or because she might notify our parents of what I was doing (though she could, and she would, respectively). I was afraid because I knew she might actually convince me to give up my quest.

Tammy could be powerfully persuasive, in her subtle, gentle way. Anyone who's had an obsession as powerful as the one that I was gripped by should know how seductive the notion of giving up can be. To give up would be so much easier... the placid lifestyle Tammy espoused would certainly be far from unpleasant. I would have acceptance, and friendship, and the love of my family again. I would have the comfort of knowing that the daily hardships I faced were the same hardships shared by everyone else around me.

But the same obsession that taunted me with pleasant notions of surrender also ensured that I could never do so. It was asking to much. I knew I could not live with myself, even with all I stood to gain, if I turned my back on my quest and shut the door on the world of magic forever.

That is why I could not allow Tammy to catch me. If she reached me, she could convince me to stop; if she convinced me to stop, then deep inside I would hate myself. Depression would follow. Then, sooner or later, death.

In a rush, I packed what I would need into a small duffel bag I could wear over my back. Clothing, toothbrush, my research. I grabbed my bank card and some loose cash off my dresser. I lamented that I could not bring my computer with me, but sadly I didn't own a laptop. Perhaps I could stop in at an occasional internet cafe when I needed to do research. I'd heard of some that would stay open 24 hours to cater to exam-stressed college students, so perhaps I would be left alone if I conducted my research in the wee hours of the night. Lastly, I took the heavy case containing _Da Rules_... now more then ever it was extremely important that I keep it close at hand.

I locked my apartment door and bid it goodbye, perhaps forever. I didn't know where I might end up when this was all over, but I knew where I was headed tonight. The Dimmsdale bus station had a cheap fare to Endsville, and there I would find Dib Membrane.

Despite my exhaustion and the late hour, my nerves and the uncomfortable seats on the bus would not allow me any more rest then the occasional catnap, which would end as soon as a bump in the road jostled my head and shook me awake again. After a few hours of this torture, I decided to instead pass the time by returning to Simon's _Anatomy of a Monster_, picking up where I had last left off.

_... These and other previously discussed phenomena make it clear that the non-terrene matter that composes the Monster is certainly extra-dimensional in origin. A dimension that humans have not even conceived of, yet interact with every day. I believe these monsters are but one species that has seeped down from another plane of existence, evolved over time to adapt to life on earth by finding sustenance on human fears. For that must be the nature of their home environment... it is not a place of sight and sound and touch, but a place made of living emotions. Can you imagine such a world? There, thoughts form the ground, notions shape the clouds and every brick used in every building is some minor wish or unvoiced desire._

_Surely, a notion that your average scientist would laugh at! But it is true, as far as all my scientific research and experimentation has shown. This place, beyond Earth, beyond normal space and time, would remain completely in the realm of theory (or some would say, fantasy!) were it not for the evidence that I have gathered. Here, reader, I will record every scrap of data that I collected from the capture of a living Monster!_

_The actual capture was actually not terribly difficult. It is well known that monsters will routinely infiltrate the living space of humans in their efforts to generate and collect human terror. Knowing this, I have littered my domicile with all manner of monster traps, and it was not long before one was sprung. The monster I captured was a particularly clumsy specimen (perhaps explaining why it was unable to avoid the traps) closely resembling a purple lop-eared rabbit, with some features (particularly the mouth) reminiscent of a toad. It is identified in the field guide earlier in this book as specimen 4D. When confronted it will attempt to swell itself with air in the manner of a puffer-fish, although this option was not open to it as it had been confined in a small 2' X 3' cage. I was able to conduct many useful and enlightening experiments before the animal eventually expired, and I will detail them here in chronological order, as taken as excerpts from my journals._

Here Simon's book took on the format of a laboratory logbook. Each page began a new day's observations, with occasional photos and hand drawn diagrams included for reference. By this point my sleep was threatening to overwhelm me and I knew even if I did not get any satisfying sleep, I would not be able to absorb information much longer. So, rather than pour over ever entry in detail I skipped forward, reading a page here and there when it seemed important. Besides, I wanted to be as informed as possible when meeting with Mr. Membrane.

_**Day 1.**__ A live specimen, at last! I can barely contain my excitement. Testing will begin shortly, as soon as I can be sure that this time the monster will not find some means of escape, or disappear when I'm not looking. At the moment it behaves much as any small animal would, pacing about nervously and backing against the far corner when I approach. I have provided it with some old rags to use as bedding, a water dish, and an assortment of dried fruit, meal worms, and rusted screws to observe its dietary preferences. Thus far it has decline to eat, but I believe this to be a result of the stress of its capture. _

_Preliminary attempts to gather information have been frustrating. Conventional photography and video cameras seem incapable of taking a simple recording of the monster. I had always assumed my past failures in the field were simply poor luck, but it now appears that monsters may have some sort of defensive adaptation that protects them from leaving an impression, even something as simple as a footprint. All my attempts have resulted in blurry, shadowy photos that are either of no use, or sometimes completely missing the animal altogether. But, despite this setback I remain optimistic; the monster is still captured. I have as much time as I need to gather data._

_More troubling is the fact that my home has come under constant attack by the specimen's brethren monsters. While I am in no serious danger (being naturally fearless), it is my work that I worry about. I must be on constant guard to prevent these other monsters from tampering with my equipment, or worse, from releasing my captive. I am not sure what relation these other monsters have to my specimen, but it is clear that their interest has been drawn by its captivity. The two glimpsed most often are the black and white striped-snake monster (specimen 3H) and the fleshy rotund male (specimen 7B), though others have been observed less frequently. The specimen is aware of their presence, as it will sometimes set into long bouts of wailing and screaming, perhaps attempting to warn its fellows or calling for help. This is truly an unnerving sound, comparable to the cry of a small wounded mammal. I wonder what information is being conveyed to the free monsters... are they pack mates? protective parents? I would love to know just what sort of social constructs these animals have developed. _

_**Day 5. **__My specimen has given in to its hunger and eaten some of the food I have provided it, though it still behaves in a stressful manner. Specifically, it has a tendency to gnaw at the tips of its forepaws, and is almost always in motion, often rocking itself on its haunches. It still wails as it did yesterday, but less frequently, and more often this will diminish into a quieter sort of whimpering. _

_The intrusions by the wild monsters have increased in frequency and disruptiveness. This morning I found my bathtub filled with dirty, broken glass. Last night the power went out; when I checked the fuse box, several wires appeared to have been gnawed through. Thank goodness I keep all my notes in hard copy! Nevertheless, I've made little progress with the specimen as I have spent much of my time re-setting traps and repairing damage. _

_**Day 7.**__ Some routine blood work today proved both frustrating and enlightening at the same time. Mere minutes after extracting a blood sample, the fluid (which already appeared dark and syrupy) clotted inside the syringe, taking on the consistency of raw sewage. Several repetitions all yielded similar results, completely independent of exposure to air, volume extracted, or site of hypodermic puncture. When considered along with the fact that I was entirely unable to locate any discernible veins or arteries during the bloodletting, this raises many questions about the vascular systems of monsters. _

_The first few extractions produced a great deal of struggling and squealing from the specimen, though after some repetition these lessened. This may be an indicative of a gradual acclimatization to the sensation of being pierced by a needle, or it may simply have been that the animal had grown temporarily weak from blood loss. This could lend support to the notion that the sludge extracted does serve as a form of blood, though I will not be able to confirm this at present. _

_**Day 12.**__ An interesting development today. After finishing the surgical removal of the subject's left ear (see entry 10 and fig. 28 and 29), I was wondering if I might be able to learn more from the amputated organ before discarding it. While I eventually decided that the initial surgery had answered all the questions regarding pain tolerance, hearing ability, equilibrium, and regenerative abilities that I had, the disembodied ear has yet proven useful. Rather then simply discarding it as medical waste, I struck upon the idea of leaving it out in a conspicuous location near the trash cans next to my house. As I had hoped, two days later the disturbances interrupting my work have ceased! Whether the specimen's pack mates took the ear as a threat, a warning, or simply as evidence that their former companion was beyond rescue the point is that the tactic worked. _

Here I paused, reminded of my own research into fairies and ancient folklore traditions. A longstanding custom held almost worldwide was to leave "gifts" of milk, bread, or baubles as entreaties to the Fey Folk. Whether it was meant to draw good luck or simply to ward of hostile spirits (which would be Simon's case, if the analogy held) the sacrifices were typically left just outside the homestead so that the fairies could collect their token during the night without being seen. Seeing certain other parallels between Simon's experiences and my own, I eagerly read on.

_**Day 19.**__ Testing continues. Information gathered today includes the electrical conductivity of a monster (fig. 33), range of visual perception (fig. 34), and X-rays of internal anatomy (figs. 35 through 47). Note that although the internal structures of the monster's eyes are significantly different from a mammal's, their perception of the visible spectrum of light is essentially the same (the closest analog being a typical house cat). This may be indicative of parallel evolution, as described by Johanson et al. (Journal of Natural Medicine, 1958). Similarly, the creature functions as though it has a skeleton even though no calcium based bones are found in the X-rays. Unfortunately, many of these more profound may only be answered when an eventual vivisection is performed, after I have gleaned all available information from the living specimen. I believe I will not have to wait long, as I am running out of available tests that will not result in serious harm to the monster. The I will need to be well prepared for the vivisection/dissection however, as all evidence suggests that the bodies of monsters decompose extraordinarily quickly, and I wish to preserve as many organs as possible for later study._

_**Day 23.**__ Today I have concluded the last of the tests; notable results include an allergy/aversion to all available soaps and detergents, as well as a sample of women's perfume I had available. Conversely, chemicals expected to have a harsh effect (see table 14 for a complete breakdown) were either ignored or in some cases treated as potential food! It is difficult to be sure though, given the waning health of the specimen. Its appetite has receded and its behavior is lethargic. I believe it is now appropriate to proceed with the vivisection before the monster dies of natural causes or captivity. I am looking forward to getting my first look at the internal anatomy that was only glimpsed on the X-ray (in particular, I am wondering about the respiratory function of a sizable gas-bladder located adjacent to but not connected to the digestive tract.) Once this is all completed, I think that whatever passes for the monster's skull will make an excellent ornament for my desk._

_**Day 24.**__ An unexpected event today! No sooner had I collected the last of the preservative fluid and surgical tools than another monster was caught in one of the traps I had left set up around the perimeter of my home. This one is physically reminiscent of nothing so much as an plump potato with six thin legs, a wide mouth and two eyes serving as a conventional "face", two thin arms and a small bit of blueish hair (see accompanying sketch). I had not encountered this one during my field work, but following the classification system I developed it has been labeled specimen 3R. Of particular interest is the "skirt" this one wore, indicating that some simple forms of clothing exist in monster culture. Though it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty, certain visual and auditory clues lead me to suspect that this second monster may be a female of the species, if such distinctions of gender do actually exist. Given the opportunity to potentially observe interaction between two monsters in captivity I have temporarily canceled the surgery scheduled for today. _

_Immediately a wealth of new information is revealed to me. As soon as I left the room containing the shared cage of the two specimens, I was able to eavesdrop on conversation held in conventional English! The ramifications of that fact alone are mind-boggling. The new addition seemed quite happy to see my original captive, referring to it (him?) as "Ickus". Unfortunately many other references were completely meaningless without additional context, but they do make me wonder... what is a "Gromble"? Why do monsters fear being "Snortched"? Most interesting was her reference to a "monster manual", inferred to be some tome or document detailing information on monster social workings. _

_Ickus, however, did not volunteer much information, perhaps correctly guessing that they were being spied upon. After a brief summarization of his situation the two stopped talking almost completely, and would not say anything whenever I was present in the room. One especially interesting addendum; except when eating the two monsters spend most of their time in close physical proximity and choose to sleep curled up together. Is this simply some form of sharing warmth? Or could it be the early stages of a mating ritual? _

_**Day 25.**__ Hoping to encourage any possible mating to occur (whether it be sociological or a simple seasonal heat) I have given the specimens additional food and water and moved them into a larger cage. Raw materials to serve any possible nesting instinct has also been provided. I have refrained from performing any tests for the time being to lessen the physical and psychological stress on the captives in the hopes that this will allow successful breeding to occur._

_Just imagine, being able to chart the entire life cycle of a monster from birth to death! What a wealth of information that could be gathered!_

_**Day 28.**__ I have taken the female specimen aside today for a preliminary examination and more specifically in the hopes of finding some evidence of pregnancy or at least that copulation has taken place. It made quite a fuss during the examination, yelping and squirming in an attempt to avoid being probed. Unfortunately I can detect no new swellings that would indicate a clutch of developing eggs, or changes in colour or markings that might indicate a heat. The examination was not a total loss however; a simple blood sample revealed that this specimen circulates a curious blue syrup that gives off an ammonia smell. This shows an incredible level of dimorphism between the sexes, or perhaps between any two members of the species. But how can this be? Surely our understanding of genetics put certain restrictions on how quickly a given species can mutate. Based on the equations given by Hertzbig (Journal of Natural Ecology, 1988) the rates of mutation are estimated to be somewhere around 475... basically every new birth could potentially be considered it's own species! This makes __**no**__ sense whatsoever, and yet is consistent with what has been observed in the field. _

_On a side note, "Ickus" reacted with unusual vigor when I removed his companion from the cage earlier today. During the entire examination he rattled his cage and let loose a pained wailing that did not cease until I had returned the female to their shared habitat. As soon as she had been returned Ickus took her to a corner of the cage and began coddling her, primarily through close physical contact and intimate gestures such as touching their faces. Perhaps it is too early to become discouraged by the lack of physical evidence; when dealing with such new and unfamiliar topics as monster reproduction, behavioral clues such as these may prove a better guide then expected physiological changes. _

_**Day 29.**__ Disaster! When I went to begin the day's examinations, I found the female specimen dead in one corner of the cage, while the male Ickus sulked in the opposite corner with his back to her. When I examined her remains I discovered the cause of death: a small and neat laceration just below the monster's face, in what might serve as its "neck". It was not difficult to determine that this was caused by Ickus' fangs or claws or some combination of the two. But what I cannot determine is what would make Ickus suddenly attack and kill his potential mate, when up until not their behavior showed absolutely no animosity between the two. Her remains have not been touched, so it is not a case of cannibalism. Her nearly pristine corpse leads me to believe that there was little or no struggle as well, making a fight over territory or dominance unlikely as well. In fact, the way that the female's body had been partially covered by the nesting material in the cage suggests that her remains were even treated with some sort of respect, though this could also be explained as an instinctive action to minimize the spread of disease. _

_Regardless, this has set back my work quite a bit. I was kept very busy conducting the autopsy and dissection of the female's remains (see accompanying sketches and fig. 55 through 58) though unfortunately the data I gathered is only a fraction of what I could have learned from a live vivisection. _

_**Day 30.**__ As expected, the female's remains have begun to decompose rapidly, despite my best efforts to preserve as much anatomy as possible. Thus far I have been able to preserve and mount the arm and legs of the right side of the body, a hair sample, and what must function as a cranium, though once it has been removed from the body it could hardly be recognized as such. _

_Which leads me to my next important discovery; all throughout the dissection I have collected the discards and removed anatomy in a bin on the side of my desk. After I had finished polishing the "skull" and setting it on a stand in my workshop, I came back to my office and noticed a peculiar change had come over the various remains of the monster. No longer did it appear as a collection of otherworldly limbs and organs, even dismembered and decayed. Instead, the remains appeared to have been replaced with a collection of garbage, trash, and other odds & ends. The main thorax was, at a casual glance, a hacked apart melon or legume of some indistinguishable variety. The legs looked like bizarre pipe-cleaners, the hair an old piece of steel wool! I had removed one of the eyeballs and sliced it open for a closer look at its internal anatomy, and right in the dissection tray it now appeared to have been replaced by a large marble, the kind children collect and play with (see table 19 for a complete breakdown by organ). Upon extremely close inspection, there are subtle differences which can differentiate these decayed organs from the inanimate objects that they resemble, but it is a difficult task. _

_More importantly, what does this mean? The link to the dietary habits of the monsters is clear. They are able to digest trash because they incorporate it into their being, just as all other life assimilates organic matter into their own bodies through conventional ingestion. But why trash? what differentiates it from other inanimate material? I feel as though I am on the verge of a breakthrough, but I need to connect some final clue to see the complete story._

_On a side note, Ickus has become increasingly hostile. Whenever I am in the room he rattles his cage and growls, and during the night when I am asleep he keeps me awake with long, mournful howling. Though I had planned to focus on the female's remains for the next several days, if this keeps up I may be forced to proceed with experimentation upon Ickus in the near future._

_**Day 35.**__ After almost a week with very little sleep I have determined to go forward with the vivisection. I have assembled all the necessary apparatus (table 20) for use during the procedure. Of particular importance are the amphetamines intended for use as a stimulant to prolong the period prior to the death of the splayed specimen during which the internal anatomical functions can be most easily studied. However, the effect of amphetamines has not been tested on monsters and thus I do not know if this will provide the desired response. However, with only one test subject available it seems an appropriate risk to take._

_After administering the dose of chemicals to the specimen, I began by pinning him down on the examination table by use of four two-inch metal pins (apparatus 4a-4d) inserted through the subject's wrists and ankles. A scalpel incision was then made beginning at the proximal end of the ventral thorax (just below the neck) down to the distal end of the ventral abdomen. Two more horizontal incisions following the standard autopsy "Y" pattern allowed the outer skin to be peeled back and revealed the superficial layer of internal organs. What a sight, to see the lungs and gas bladder functioning in unison as the creature screamed! The tiny "heart" of the animal was rapidly fluttering from fear and amphetamines, keeping it awake despite the drastic decrease in blood pressure. It was not until much later, after I had cut away the latticework "ribs" that I was able to directly observe the trivalvular heart at work. Taking my best guess at which organs would be least needed to keep the animal alive, I proceeded to cut the connective tissue away from what I believed to be the digestive tract-_

I closed the book,my stomach starting to heave inside my belly. A quick glance forward confirmed that this account stretched forward for a number of pages, detailing every aspect of the vivisection, death, and complete autopsy of "Ickus". The title "Anatomy of a Monster" was exactly what the book had promised me. I tucked the book back into my duffel bag until I could summon the nerve to finish it sometime later. Knowing I would not be able to sleep during the rest of the bus ride, I nevertheless closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind until I arrived at my destination.

A few hours later, the bus deposited me at the Endsville bus terminal and I was on my way again. I knew the address of the MembraneTech headquarters, but would need to wait until daylight to book an appointment with Mr. Membrane's secretary. In the meantime I found my way to a mediocre motel and settled in to rest. Endsville was unfamiliar to me, but it was an old city with a dark history, so I was sure I could find some local sights to keep me occupied while I awaited my meeting with Dib. My mind was turning over the many questions I wanted to ask him, and remained in this frenzied state until exhaustion eventually overcame me and I drifted off to an uneasy sleep.


End file.
